More French than the French

Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn have identified another link in the chain between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda — Ansar al Islam. This is a terrorist organization that, according to the French anti-war newpaper Le Monde, “was founded in 2001 with the joint help of Saddam Hussein–who intended to use it against moderate Kurds–and al Qaeda, which hoped to find in Kurdistan a new location that would receive its members.”
When even Le Monde accepts this particular connection, it’s a bit dismaying to see our MSM ignore it, and folks who clearly should know better, such as former Clinton administration counterterrorism official Daniel Benjamin, denying any connection at all. Moreover, this connection is supported by intelligence intercepts and by the reporting of the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Goldberg and others. Yet our see-no-foreign-evil, Rove-fixated MSM makes the absence of any connection an article of its liberal faith.
Please read the whole thing.